


Bully

by Asexual_Ravioli



Series: Mikasa Ackerman X Annie Leonhardt Shorts [23]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Elementary School, F/F, Fluff, Light Angst, Valentine's Day, misguided attempts at young love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 06:11:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17054657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asexual_Ravioli/pseuds/Asexual_Ravioli
Summary: Because girls don’t like girls, and girls don’t cut off other girls’ hair if they do.





	Bully

It wasn’t because Mikasa got more home runs in kickball or because Mikasa got more “good work” stickers on math homework or because Mikasa had more gold stars on Mrs. Petra’s good behavior board. No, it wasn’t because Mikasa was stronger or smarter or better.

Mikasa Ackerman was all of those, but Annie Leonhardt hated Mikasa because Mikasa was beautiful.

And Annie didn’t understand. Why did it make her mad? Sasha had a cute little pouty mouth, that Annie wanted to squish, even when Sasha ate paste. Jean had two-colored, spiky hair that Annie wanted to feel. Ymir had splashes of freckles she wouldn’t let anyone poke, not that Annie would dare to try. Mikasa, however, had something else, and that something else brought out what Mrs. Petra called Annie’s “bad feelings” side.

Mikasa. Black _black_ hair. So unlike Annie’s boring blonde hair. Mikasa’s was so flowy and smooth-looking. Shiny. She had a red scarf she never took off, not even during gym class. And eyes so different from Annie’s regular, unspecial blue eyes. Mikasa’s eyes were a deep dark secret color that Annie couldn’t find in her crayon box. She’d spent time mixing grays and blacks until Mrs. Petra fretted over why Annie was only drawing storm clouds.

“Sky at night,” Annie lied. “Forgot the stars.”

“Uh-huuuh,” the teacher said.

Annie watched Mrs. Petra—sunny orange hair, leafy green eyes, a little pink, patient smile—as she squatted by Annie’s little table at the craft area.

“Why don’t you go play with a friend,” Mrs. Petra said. “Mikasa’s there, all by herself since her brother and Armin are out sick!”

Annie clenched her failed drawing in her hand, shaking her head so fast that it might pop right off her neck. Mikasa was looking at her; eyes clear but impossible to read. Annie glowered.

“You’re still not getting along?” Mrs. Petra said very quietly.

“I DON’T LIKE ANYONE!” Annie blurted out.

“Aah. Okay…” Mrs. Petra said. “Okay, Annie. Just…indoor voices.”

And then she let Annie go back to drawing her sky at night.

 

Jacket days. Chilly weather, hot soup, almost-mittens days. The class stayed inside a lot, walls decorated by cheery house drawings, fall trees like sunset explosions, and Annie’s frenzy of black tornados.

Sneezing and snot. Sickness and lessons on nose blowing. Annie got spitting mad when Eren wiped a booger on Mikasa’s scarf, but no one else cared as much as she did. Annie’s “overreaction” lost her one gold star.

 

Ugly sweaters. Fuzzy blankets at story time. Red. Green.

 

Annie didn’t really see the point of their arts and crafts. Sometimes they combined it with learning numbers. Or letters. But this time, they made Santas. Red construction paper hats, black bean eyes, cotton ball beards and hat fluff.

Mikasa was right next to her, cutting a perfect triangle hat and dotting the top tip with glue. Armin was on Mikasa’s other side, the only one making a “menorah,” and Annie tuned out his explaining why (Eren thought they were birthday candles).

Then Annie made a dumb mistake, lopping off the top of her own Santa hat.

“Shits,” Annie said before she could stop herself.

Mikasa looked up, eyes serious and focused. “Huh?”

“I…I ruined it.” Annie’s hands trembled.

Mikasa tilted her head. “But what did you say?”

Annie held her breath before yelling, “NOTHING!”

Bad liar.

“You said it wrong,” Mikasa told her. “My _father_ just says ‘shit.’”

“Wh…Why would it be just one?!” Annie said, voice rising shrill.

Mikasa looked down. “I dunno. Here.” She dabbed some glue on Annie’s Santa hat. “Cover the cut part with the cotton.”

Annie stood and stomped. “I don’t _wanna_!”

“Fine,” Mikasa said, sounding like Annie’s mom whenever she had a fit. “Be that way.”

“WHAT MAKES YOU SO GROWN UP?” Annie shouted. The whole class halted, Armin began crying, and Mrs. Petra rushed over.

“Girls?” she said. “Is everything alright?”

Annie’s eyes filled with tears. “Mikasa said ‘shit.’ She taught me.”

“Oh…” Mrs. Petra said. “Mikasa, where did you hear that word?”

Mikasa never tattled on Annie. And Annie didn’t know why.

 

If Mrs. Petra knew they didn’t get along, then why did they always end up together? At desk time, Mikasa sat right in front of Annie, who sat in the very back corner on the right.

Sat all day, watching that night black hair swish every time Mikasa raised her hand.

Annie was ready to scream.

She got close to “tantrum time” but remembered how the teacher told her to breathe first, then think about what she wanted, and how to get it.

As it so happened, Annie felt herself almost crying, sitting there behind Mikasa, until she breathed, thought about what she wanted, grabbed her scissors, and got it.

The snap of her scissors proved too loud, her hand too eager in its tugging for those dark locks. Mikasa spun in her chair, wide-eyed, and saw Annie, clutching at a fistful of black black hair.

That was when things got bad. That was when Annie first saw Mikasa cry and had her gold stars stripped from the board, and that was when Annie got sent to Principal Smith’s office and got called a bully for chopping off a swath of Mikasa’s hair that she couldn’t even take home with her.

 

A short haircut. Pretty, still. Whenever she saw her, Mikasa was like stone, and Annie decided that the other girl’s eyes were grey and dull, maybe because they were so hateful whenever they locked onto her bully, so Annie didn’t look at her much anymore.

Winter break flickered by, a passage of dark filled by cold white snow and happy colored lights hanging from trees. Annie thought about buying Mikasa something, but her allowance was suspended ever since the Scissors Incident.

And Mikasa’s hair might have looked longer when they came back in January, but Annie was trying to be good, and being good meant not being with Mikasa. No one told Annie that not looking at her would help, but she figured that out on her own. Plus, Mrs. Petra had moved Annie to the front of the classroom. She couldn’t look back without other people wondering why.

 

Days wore on into weeks, and Annie tried not to measure time by the length of Mikasa’s hair.

 

Annie decided to always sit with Bert and Reiner at lunchtime. The two boys were close friends, one tall and dark and worried, the other stocky and blonde and kind of dumb. Annie didn’t fit, didn’t want to fit, but she also didn’t want to be the kid sitting alone.

“Hey, Annie?” Bert said one day.

Bert liked Annie. Annie knew this because he was weird and sweaty and red with her.

“What,” she said. Not even a question. She didn’t want an answer as her eyes strayed to Mikasa sitting between Eren and Armin, a table away. Armin got flustered when he couldn’t open his milk carton. Eren tried to help and made a spill. Then, Mikasa took over. Annie’s eyes narrowed as she watched Eren take Mikasa’s milk by accident and drink from it.

“Do you like candy?” Bert said. “I…I mean. Everyone likes ca—”

“Get me KitKits,” Annie said, standing up. “I’m not sharing.”

“Ah…Annie!”

Annie made a beeline for Mikasa’s table. Mikasa was lifting a milk carton to her mouth. Annie snatched it up and threw it to the ground, milk exploding on the linoleum like white blood.

Instead of crying, Mikasa leapt from her seat, already raising her hands into painful fists. She’d almost gotten to Annie when firm hands grabbed them each by the back of their collars.

“What’s wrong with you two shi—uh, kids?” the short angry janitor said. “I have to clean that up, you know.”

“Mr. Levi,” Annie said. “That wasn’t her milk.”

He stared down at Annie before letting them go and rubbing at his tired eyes. “So?” he said. Annie could tell he was trying to breathe.

“That’s Eren’s milk,” Annie said. “Mikasa can only drink soy.”

Armin and Eren gasped. Mikasa watched Annie, her eyes blank as she cast them down to the milk pooling at their feet.

Annie clenched her fists as the silence grew and forced herself to look Mikasa in the eye. “I saved your life…Crap-ass!” Then she made a dash for the restrooms.

At the cafeteria door, she spun on her heel and glared at Mr. Levi. “I’M GONNA BE TALLER THAN YOU SOMEDAY.”

 

Mikasa’s birthday, February 10th, was over the weekend, and she said that she’d celebrate with the class on Valentine’s Day anyways. On the day when the classroom was overwhelmed by pink cutout hearts and the promise of sugar overload, Mikasa brought perfect, tiny red-iced cupcakes that Annie tried to shove in her backpack, but the teacher got mad and said no saving.

“But I don’t want them!” Annie bawled. It wasn’t what she meant, and it made her cry harder, everyone thinking she really hated Mikasa, when all she wanted was to admire the cupcakes at home. After Mrs. Petra soothed her in the hallway, Annie got ready with everyone else to hand out cards and candy.

Annie’s cards were themed with little Batmans. The other students had similar cards— _Pokémon, Spongebob, My Little Pony_ —and they walked around the desks now arranged in a circle, giving them out. Annie passed by Mikasa’s desk without putting anything down. No one noticed.

She wasn’t sure what she was doing. A little card with a Batman pun wouldn’t be enough. Annie cutting off her own hair to make herself even would be _too_ much. She could give her all her candy and run away. Running away was good, something the teacher called “cooldown time.” She could do everything: she could call Mikasa’s hair pretty and kiss her and say sorry sorry sorry and run away forever. But she couldn’t really do any of that, because she was too confused. Because girls don’t like girls, and girls don’t cut off other girls’ hair if they do. Dejected, Annie returned to her desk and pushed aside a king-sized KitKat bar, planting her face in the shelter of her arms.

A shadow fell over her, and she looked up to see Mikasa, probably wondering why she hadn’t gotten a gift from Annie.

“I got you something,” Mikasa said in a no-emotion voice.

“I don’t…” Annie began, but the curiosity was too great. “…Whatdya get?”

A little gold-wrapped box with a black ribbon fell onto Annie’s desk. She looked to Mikasa, who gave no answers, and Annie picked up the box slowly, listening to something rattling inside. Then she wrenched off the ribbon as fast as she could, the pretty paper coming with it.

A plain white box. Annie opened it.

“Crayons?” she said.

But not a whole box of them, just four brand new Crayolas: black, grey, white, blue.

“You’re always drawing the sky,” Mikasa said, hiking her scarf over her mouth. “Sometimes the sky has blue in it. And white for stars…”

“The paper’s white,” Annie said. “Um…for the stars. So. I’ll um…”

Annie stared up at her, into eyes that had so many layers she couldn’t capture. Because for too long she hadn’t really seen: blue.

“Okay,” Annie said with a nod. “I’ll try.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Mikannie Week 2018](http://mikannieweek.tumblr.com), Day 2: Enemies


End file.
